Trust Issues
by PhoebeDreams
Summary: Starting a new job is never easy, Jess Parker finds out - especially when the job involves dinosaurs, rips in time, and teeth-grindingly stubborn army Captains.
1. Chapter 1

Trust Issues

Jess Parker was an intelligent young woman, and so she had suspected it for a while: Working life was not at all like they made it look on TV. Nonetheless, when she actually did start to work right after finishing university at the tender age of 19, it still came as a shock when reality set in. Although of course, in a job that involved dinosaurs and rips in time, reality was a relative term.

It wasn't the work itself, the knowledge and skills required of her – those she had mastered within the first few days. It was the human side of it that troubled her. She didn't have the usual work problems friends had told her about, like sleazy colleagues who couldn't keep their hands to themselves, or gossiping female staff; even her boss was actually quite nice. James Lester, with all his snobbishness and sarcasm – the dominant tone around here, Jess had noticed – was actually all right once she'd started to be a bit less intimidated by the fact that he seemed to frown upon public displays of – well – being in a good mood. She accidentally found a bottle of 12-year-old scotch in the third drawer on his desk once though, so she was pretty sure he couldn't be all bad.

But she would have liked a bit more support from her boss when it came to her work. After all, she knew the ARC had been created out of a previous, similar institution that had been shut down after several employees had died or gone missing. In order to prevent situations like these, her position had been created – to provide background information, grant the field teams access to the anomalies, and generally be their eyes and ears on site. However, many colleagues, especially the ones that had been working at the previous ARC, seemed unable to grasp how exactly she contributed to the missions. As nice as most people were once she started talking to them, it seemed they somehow expected her to prove herself before being fully respected.

Jess had noticed soon enough that some of her colleagues, and especially the soldiers, who were supposed to rely on her the most, were quite doubtful of her abilities, possibly due to her age, and lately, that had been creating friction. Very often, her information was received rather off-handedly, or ignored altogether. She had noticed on several occasions the men taking different routes than the ones she had suggested, or, at anomaly sites, ignoring her info on a building's layout or the creatures visible on its CCTV feed. Jess was beginning to wonder why her position had been created at all, if no one seemed to want her, and on several days, she was close to tears by the time she left the ARC.

Two months into her new employment, Jess had enough of it. Several times already her instructions had been ignored, generally with disastrous outcomes, and though she knew it wasn't her fault, Jess always felt a little guilty. One day, this problem occurred again. A small unit of Becker's soldiers again ignored her info on the exact location of an anomaly within an industrial building, and ended up running straight into a pair of raptors. One of the men got severely mauled before the other three could take down the raptors. As before, Jess felt bad about the way the mission had ended, even though she knew she had done everything she could.

After the men returned from their not very successful outing, Matt stopped by her place and, with an empathy that surprised her due to his usual distant demeanour, immediately realised that something was wrong. He even correctly guessed what was troubling her.

"Jess, I'm sorry you had to witness this. But you know that none of this was your fault, right?" As surprised as she was, Jess was thankful for his support.

"I know, rationally speaking. I had a visual on the entire building, I told them about every dangerous creature and they simply chose to ignore me. It was their fault, not mine. Still, I mean, in the end, it's all of our responsibility, and there's no use putting the blame on others at the ARC if we fail to work as a team, is there?"  
>Matt looked impressed by her statement.<p>

"Yes, that might just be right. If only everyone on the team thought like you." With that, and a reassuring pat on her shoulder that startled her because he had never done anything like that before, Matt placed the black box on her desk and walked away.

Finally, Jess knew what she had to do, and quickly logged into the comm system to call Becker. Before she could say anything, however, she heard him saying her name, and stopped to listen for a few seconds.

"Miss Parker told you the anomaly was located in the room you were entering. Why did you not take more time to secure the room? Were your comms down?"

"No." A second male voice answered. One quick look through the ARC's security camera feed told her Becker was in the medical bay with one of his injured men, Fairchild.

"Then what was the problem?"

"Come on, captain, you know we never listen to her. I mean, she sits there, in her garish little skirts, telling us which way to drive – couldn't they have just bought us a sat nav? And what would a nineteen-year-old girl know about that kind of technical stuff anyway?"

"She knows enough to get hired. And if you had listened to her, Williams would not be in ICU right now."

"You don't even listen to her." As much as this seemed to irritate the Captain, Jess had to admit the man was right. She got on well with Becker when they met around the ARC, he had immediately responded to her playful teasing and he seemed to somehow trust her as an ally against Matt, whom he didn't get on with at all. As a person, Becker seemed to like her well enough. But when it came to her work, the Captain was no better than his men. He had never ignored her as blatantly as the men today, but he too had argued with her over her choice of traffic routes or the best way of moving through creature-infested buildings. Becker, of course, denied this.

"I do listen to her. It's her job to guide us, so I let her guide."

"But you don't trust her. Come on, everyone knows you think she's a clueless little girl as well."

There was a moment of silence, and Jess knew enough about soldiers by now to know that this was a glaring breach of respect – both to himself and to her, who was, after all, superior in rank to his men – that Becker should not tolerate. She expected him to reprimand the man sharply, but instead he just answered, resignedly:

"Well, apparently, she's not clueless, so we'd do well to listen to her in the future."

Jess was angry beyond words by now. It was Becker's job to control his men, and to exert his authority if they didn't obey orders – his own or Jess'. Not to imply that he didn't trust her either, but what could they do?

Well, Jess decided, if Becker wasn't going to help her, she'd just have to help herself, using the best - and only - weapons she had: Computers and knowledge.

Forty-five minutes later, Jess called the soldiers into a conference room where she had set up a beamer and laptop.

Without any introduction or explanation, she dimmed the lights and started the presentation, which contained nothing but a series of images of their last anomaly missions, at least the ones that had not gone well. The first image showed two bloodied human bodies in various stages of … well... disassembly.

"March 15th, 3.15 pm. You arrive at an anomaly site just after a sabre toothed tiger has attacked a pair of teenagers. Had you followed my traffic instructions, you would have arrived there a full twelve minutes earlier, and would have most likely been able to save the couple." She pressed a button on the little remote and the next slide appeared, again showing a mangled carcass.

"April 4th, 9.32 am. You arrive at an anomaly site located in the middle of a rugby field. You ignore my advice to circle around the open field in order to be downwind of the creature, a female triceratops. The creature is a herbivore, but accompanied by her young and thus likely to attack anyone it perceives as a threat. Before you can get within shooting range, the animal is picking up your scent and charges, trampling one of your comrades and almost escaping into a nearby residential area."

She continued like this for another ten minutes, stating several more examples of their failed cooperation and commenting on how she could have contributed to a more positive outcome had they listened to her. The slides did not always show dead bodies, but when they did not, there usually was a lot of damage and destruction which could also have been avoided.

After the last slide, she abruptly switched the light back on, making the soldiers flinch and blink into the bright light. Without giving them time to recover, she continued in her usual sweet tone, which she had maintained all the way through the gruesome presentation.

"It has come to my notice that some, if not all, of you, are questioning my efficiency and, in fact, whether I am of any use to the team at all. I hope this little presentation has shown you what exactly it is I do and why it is important. Because not only do I buy you valuable time to save innocent lives, I actually provide info that would save your asses if you cared to listen." There were a few chuckles around the room, and Jess quickly continued, not wanting them to relax too much.

"Now, as Captain Becker obviously sees no need to do so, I have to remind you that I am in fact your superior in rank. The next person who disobeys my orders will be reported to Mr Lester, and serious consequences will follow. I hope we have an understanding?"

There was stunned silence for a few heartbeats, before one very young soldier answered, rather meekly:

"Yes Ma'am."

All the others repeated his confirmation, and with a nod of her head, Jess dismissed them.

The only soldier remaining was Captain Becker, with a rather sheepish expression on his face.

"I guess I owe you an apology now."

"Yes you do. I should not have had to do this. I overheard you talking to Fairchild. You didn't exactly go out of your way to protest when he said you didn't trust me, and we both know he was right." He didn't deny it, which she found very much to his credit.

"The question is: If you don't trust me, how are your men supposed to?" She said it gently, not wanting to aggravate him unnecessarily after already criticising him in front of his men, but he still reacted defensively.

"Well, you know, you don't exactly look professional..." Anger flaring up in her, Jess closed the remaining distance between them, until she stood less than two feet away from him.

"Don't you dare make this about me, Captain Becker! You are supposed to be the leader here, and in a situation where an exact order from a superior is ignored, you are the one to exert your authority and draw the necessary consequences, not allow your men to badmouth me in front of you!"

He pushed himself away from where he had been leaning against the wall and drew himself up to his full height, towering over her intimidatingly, but she was too angry to care, continuing before he could stop her:

"If this is your idea of leadership, maybe you shouldn't have returned to the ARC."

The moment the words left her mouth, she knew they had been a mistake. He reeled back as if she had slapped him, his face frozen in shock, and Jess internally cursed herself. Sure, she had been incredibly angry at him, but she had read his old files, had even tentatively discussed them with Lester, and she knew how hard it had been for him to return. She was about to apologize when he stepped away from her.

"I'm sorry you feel that way."

With that, he practically fled from the room, and it was now Jess' turn to feel that she owed him an apology. Sighing, she switched off the beamer, closed the laptop and left the room in search of Becker. It was probably better not to let this get out of control.

A/N: Even with the webisodes, we hardly see anything about how the new team learned to work together, but it couldn't have been all that easy. I know Becker and Jess seem to get on very well from the start, but I figured, with Becker as traumatised as we see him in the webisodes and the first episode of series 4, he had to have some difficulties adjusting to the new ARC. And Jess is part of the new ARC. I really hope you don't feel like I've made him look too bad. As for Jess: The woman got hired by telling them they should hire her because she was the best. At 19.

Also, please don't be irritated by the fact that I'm currently working on three stories at once (this one, So many days and You slip your heart into my chest). I've already written quite a few parts of both stories, and I'm very productive right now because I actually have a bunch of other things to do, so instead I'm writing like crazy. I'm sure many of you know the feeling. So for the ones of you who kindly reviewed my other stories: Hang in there, I will update.

And on an entirely unrelated note: Can anyone tell me where Connor's accent is from, I mean geographically and/or socially?


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I keep forgetting this, so: I don't own anything.

It took surprisingly long for Jess to find Becker. She had thought he'd be at the shooting range or the armoury, because he seemed like the type who'd blow off some steam shooting. In fact, she had often seen him head there in the past after one of their less successful outings.

Today, however, she found him in the menagerie. The sight of him looking down on the magnificent animals past and future, supporting himself with his arms on the railing, was so unusual that she had no idea how to approach him, so she remained standing in the doorway. She could see how tense his shoulders were, and knew from watching him intently these past weeks that it wasn't just due to the way he was standing right now. He was tense all the time, tense and uncomfortable and tight-lipped, but the way his head was drooping right now was new. He looked defeated.

"Yes, Miss Parker?"

She flinched, startled. He had not given any indication that he knew she was in the room, and the fact that she had been staring at him for almost a full minute with him knowing it mortified her.

"How.. how did you know...?" Her voice sounded squeaky, and she hated it.

"Your shoes."

"Oh. Right." She didn't know what else to say.

"Was there anything else you needed?" There was an annoyed finality in his voice, and she knew he was about to brush her off and leave.

"I' wanted to apologise. I was angry at you, but what I said was unfair and wrong. You're an excellent leader and a good soldier, I was just disappointed because I received so little support from you."

"Yes, well, I believe I apologized for that already." He sounded snappish, and for the first time she thought that maybe he wasn't quite as mature, detached and professional as he'd like to be either. But she had confronted the entire military staff today, she could take on one more person.

"Listen, I know what I said before was wrong, and mean. I know I can't even begin to understand what you've been through, but I've already realised you cared for your friends very much, and you would have done anything to save them."

He finally turned around now, and she walked up to stand next to him. He did not say anything, but he hadn't thrown her out yet either, so Jess figured they were doing fine. And then he started talking, and she had to keep herself from staring at him.

"I didn't want to return at all at first. Abby, Connor, Danny and finally Sarah – too many people were lost because of me, people I cared about. But Lester kept insisting I return, until I finally thought that maybe, if I did return here, I could make up for my past failures. For about a week, it felt incredibly good to be here, be useful."

Ah, Jess thought to herself at this point, hence the good mood on our first meeting, but she kept quiet and let him continue. It was probably not every day Captain Becker felt the urge to talk about his feelings to a person he had only known for a little over a month.

"But then the dying started again, both civilians and my own men, and again I thought... well, it's my job to protect people."

"But it's not your job alone. There's Matt, and me, we're here to have your back, and then your men are not new at this, they know how to look after themselves – well, except the ones that ignored my instructions. You don't have to carry the responsibility for everyone here. That's why we're a team – Matt, you and me, we're all on the same level of clearance for a reason, which is to support each other." She paused and watched him as her words sunk in, and the dark shadow seemed to lift from his expression. And then, as he looked up at her with hopeful eyes, she gathered her courage and continued.

"I don't want to replace your old team-mates. But I'd like it if we could become friends." She concentrated very hard on not blushing as she said this, hoping he didn't know just how much she'd like to become friends. He looked at her with a confused expression, and she really did blush now. What an unbelievably childish thing to do, Jess thought to herself – asking one's co-worker if he wanted to be friends. She resisted the urge to hide her face or run out of the room as he responded.

"As I said, I returned here with the goal of finding redemption, of sorts. I was determined to work harder, be better, faster, more concentrated. After the others all … left, I swore to myself I'd never let work fill out my life like this again, and I'd never let myself get close to co-workers again." Jess' face fell. Of course. He was a professional, and so should she be. They should be discussing security issues, not whether or not they could be friends.

"I'm sorry. I didn't want to impose myself on you." She turned to step away from the window, but his hand on her arm stopped her, his expression not mocking, but open and hopeful.

"Jess? I'd like to be friends. I said I swore not to get close to my colleagues again. I didn't say it was a good idea."

She was wary for a moment, until he smiled, that rare, beautiful smile, still with sadness tingeing the edges, and she couldn't help but smile back.

"Perfect. I'm a little rusty on the protocol though – the last time I asked somebody if they wanted to be friends, we sealed it by having imaginary tea on my little doll china set." He outright laughed now, and she was glad she'd followed him.

"Well, I could use some non-imaginary coffee out of a really big cup. What about you?"

"Oh yes. Between yelling at your men and yelling at you and looking for you to apologize for yelling, I haven't had time to catch a break yet." He nodded understandingly, and they started walking towards the tea kitchen, chatting amiably.

"Of course. Busy day for you, what with all the yelling. I'm just glad you yell in more dulcet tones than my old army instructors."

"Just you wait. I've found Lester's Scotch and cigars, I might surprise you one day."

Something else occurred to her suddenly, and while they were getting on so well, she dared ask.

"What were you doing in the menagerie, by the way? I've been looking all over the ARC for you, but this was the last place I looked, of course."

"It's where I sometimes come to think of the others. You know the little green flying lizard, Rex?"

"Yes, of course, the Coelurosauravus. It's the only animal with a name, I've always wondered why that is."

"He was also the first animal at the ARC. And he ended up there because Abby actually hid him at an anomaly site and secretly took him home. It took weeks before it all got out apparently, and after that, he had become so used to living at her and Connor's flat that he was allowed to stay there. I brought him into the ARC after they disappeared."

"So Abby and Connor live together? Are they a couple?" She was very careful not to use past tense when referring to his friends, knowing he thought they were still alive.

"Well, that's a tough question to answer... The last I know, they both insisted they were just friends. But a blind person could see they were completely smitten, especially Connor. The amount of blushing and bumbling around the ARC was spectacular. They even kissed once, according to Danny."

Jess was struck by how odd it was to be strolling about the ARC with Captain Becker, gossiping about his probably dead colleagues' love life. Well, she was just glad he talked to her again. Smiling, Jess listened to Becker's tales as images of Connor, Abby, Danny and Sarah rose before her inner eye, as vibrant as if they were still alive.

A/N: I returned after a little break yesterday, and what do you know, I just slipped back into the story and finished Trust Issues. For now. Although maybe I'll think of some more of Jess and Becker's steps along the way. And of course, there's Jess and Matt, who we don't see interact much either. After all, this fic is early days, so it's not shippy yet. (Well, maybe a little.) Also, I'm not sure whether Jess thinks the others are alive or dead at this point.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: I have a paper due in a couple of days, so of course I went on a mad writing spree.

And, since I keep forgetting: I don't own Primeval. Although I'd like to. Just think of the possibilities!

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><p>Captain Becker turned into the corridor that led to the break room, looking forward to his regular afternoon coffee. He had almost reached the door when he could hear Jess' tinkling laugh, and had to smile involuntarily. Since their talk two weeks ago, they had got along better and better, and he really felt comfortable in her presence now. Of course, he kept reminding himself not to become too close – despite her offer to be friends, he would make sure their contact, no matter how pleasant it was, would remain limited to the ARC.<p>

Nonetheless, while he was here, Becker figured, there really could be no harm in the occasional chat, could there? Besides, she was funny, if mostly involuntarily so. Just last week she had gone from informing him of a new and dangerous computer virus – he hadn't told her that he didn't even have a computer at home – to telling him about her first bike and how she had managed to crash straight into a wall two seconds into her first ride. He still wasn't entirely sure how she had managed to get from one topic to the other, but he had been amused nonetheless. Her carefree attitude, bright smile and scattered mind simply made her fun to be around.

She was getting along splendidly with everyone else, too, including his men. After she had given them a good talking-to about trusting her abilities, they had been duly impressed, and had since listened to her every word. He was almost a little envious of the way she'd managed that – it generally took him days of brutal training to whip his men into shape like that. Now they all followed her like love-struck puppies, and he was afraid that some of them might actually develop a bit of a crush on her. He'd have to address that issue, make it a new rule: No falling in love with the field coordinator.

Just as he was thinking this, having almost reached the break room, he heard Jess laugh again, and this time, her laugh was echoed by a second, male laugh. He briefly wondered if one of his men might already be in danger of breaking his as yet unwritten rule, but then the person spoke, and the Irish accent told him it was Matt Jess was talking to. Laughing with, actually.

The realization made him stop dead, the smile dropping off his face.

No matter how hard he tried to suppress it, Becker still found himself thinking of the ARC in terms of "old" and "new", and, occasionally, "right" and "wrong". And the person who represented the two negative categories the most, to him, was Matt. He knew, rationally, that it wasn't the Irishman's fault, but Becker could not forgive Matt for replacing Danny. Sure, they had had their issues, initially, but frankly, Becker had been impressed by Danny's tenaciousness in worming his way into the ARC. Danny knew he wanted to join as soon as he knew about the ARC, and he knew why. With the disappearance of his brother, the ex-cop had something at stake, something that motivated him, and it was this above all that made Becker trust him.

Matt, on the other hand, he found impossible to read. Sure, as Jess had pointed out on their first meeting, he was perfect for the job, but in Becker's eyes, he was too perfect. His CV read as if he had spent his entire life preparing for exactly this position, but the way he acted gave absolutely no indication that Matt Anderson saw this as anything else than a job.

He shook his head as he remembered that conversation, the way Jess had teased him about being intimidated by their new leader's abilities. Although, come to think of it, Jess herself had seemed a bit too impressed by them – especially considering how young their perfect candidate was, "and fit, too", as Jess had put it. That comment made him wonder if there was something more going on between her and the team leader, but he quickly dismissed the thought. After all, it didn't do to see romantic entanglements everywhere around him, just because that had been the case at the old ARC.

He sighed at this thought, remembering how often he had cursed his colleagues for exactly this problematic aspect of their relationships. Professor Cutter and Jenny Lewis had been so close that Cutter's death had made Jenny leave the ARC. Abby and Connor had been simply hopeless, and twice as likely to get into trouble as everyone else, because they always tried to save the other no matter how stupid and dangerous it was. And even Sarah, he sometimes thought, had carried a bit of a torch for Danny, not that anything had ever happened between them.

He pushed the thought of Sarah out of his mind, but by now, the happy prospect of coffee was spoiled by the thought of having to meet Matt to get it. He turned and strode back down the corridor. He hadn't put in any shooting practice for a couple of days, he might as well do that.

To conclude what had to be his umpteenth comparison of the old and new ARC, Becker realised that he should actually be happier here than he had been at the old ARC. After all, people were much more professional, there were no civilians in the field, much less reckless, love-struck civilians, and everyone acted completely according to protocol. It should appeal to his soldierly mentality, his need for order and structure and calm behaviour. Instead, he had come to like the chaotic, impromptu, and much too... human way they had dealt with things before.

They had been heroes back then. Now they were just ordinary grunt workers, cleaning up after Time's messes.

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><p>AN: This went into a completely different direction than I had intended. It was supposed to have some interaction between Jess and Becker about Matt, and it was supposed to be longer. But Becker couldn't even enter the room with Matt in it, so I guess I needed one chapter of Becker comparing the old and new ARC first. I wasn't sure Becker would actually put the heroics as one of the things he misses about the old ARC, but then I remembered how he distracted the predators in Season 3, Episode 8, and figured he might.

Also, I couldn't stop myself from putting in a bit of ironic foreshadowing – no falling in love with the field coordinator, indeed!


End file.
